Driven to crime

A french amateur rallye driver was involved in an accident where many spectators where killed in France (2001 I think). Don't remember the name but this guy was involved in illegal activity with corsica freedom movment.

Riseley-Prichard died of Aids in Thailand and was propably happy of it : he was charged for sexual assaults on kids under 15.

No racing or crime connection that I know of, but remember the American who had a 'fondness' for Thai children? He would visit often and fathered at least four children. After he died, someone made the connection to who he was...

Owner of DHL air cargo - worth billions. His unhappy family had to split the inheritance with them.Thanks, Dad

I seem to remember Darrel Aldermann of the NHRA spent some time in jail in the late 80's/early 90's. I believe for breaking and entering, though I'm not sure. I also think he was former champ in the Pro Stock category.

Nick Whiting used to race an Escort at Brands in the 70's. Apparently went to school with Kenneth Noye who was involved with the Brinks Mat robbery, murder of a policeman and a road rage incident where he stabbed & killed a young lad.

Whiting disappeared a few years ago and it has subsequently come to light that his old schoolmate had a rather big hand in his disappearance due allegedly to Whiting ripping him off.

Whiting's body was found about 5 years after his disappearance.

Noye is now doing life but apparently still has influence within S London and particularly amongst the **** that were involved with the Steven Lawrence murder !

Both he and Scott Geoffrion drove for the Mopar Wayne County Dodge team. The Wayne County shop wasn't robbed, it was vandalized extensively. All the engine blocks had been given a treatment by a large mallett and heads hit with a balpeen hammer. No robbery, but all equipment utterly destroyed. I do not recall now whether Mr. Alderman was serving his cocaine sentence at the time or if he was out on bail.

There had been loud protests from competitors that the team was illegal. Warren Johnson in particular was livid, but repeated tear-downs never found anything illegal, which just chapped the always easy going Johnson all the more (not to imply anything with Professor Warren).

The dominant team of the era never really recovered. Announcements were made about their return, then that race would come and go and no Wayne County team. They showed up years later at a Winter test session at Famoso, did a run or two and then packed up and left...

One of the most bizarre and unusual events of recent U.S. racing history.

In addition to the occasional foray in Pro Stock, Alderman also competed (with great success) in the short lived Pro Stock Truck category. To bring it full cycle, I believe Alderman's team in Pro Stock Truck was the Wayne County team. I wasn't following Drag Racing much by then, so I'd have to check.

I understand there was at least one big-iron 50s Southern California racer whose occasional hiatuses were as a result of illegitimate means of supporting his racing habit. Mostly stealing parts for his racing cars, in the form of cars.

One of my friends was a crewman on the Conte racing IMSA effort in 1983-84. I was able to attend and photograph two of their test sessions, one at Willow Springs, one at Riverside. John Paul, Jr., was driver of the Lola at the first one. A very pleasant, even affable young man. I don't remember who else was driver at Riverside, but Tony Adamowicz and John Morton were there and may have been in the seat of the Lola and the Mazda RX-7. I must look for the remainder of the photos I made on those days. Just four have found their way to my site, so far. Willow

In 1966 or so I met some members of the Tijuana Auto Sport Club. They had by that time organized and executed two or three roadracing events on streets meeting the Mexico-USA border at the Pacific coast. Their track was run clockwise on two half-mile straights connected by links of forty yards, one a ten per cent decline at right angles to the long stretches, the other a decreasing-radius incline whose apex was a track-width south of the borderline.

Over a period of two or three months they planned another racing event, and I helped publicize it. I suggested they add a left turn or two to the track layout, and that they run it counter-clockwise. They agreed, and you can see the result atPlayas Course

The inaugural event on that configuration was a success; five or fifteen thousand spectators showed up, many of them actually paying admission. A substantial deposit was made to the Baja California Governor's wife's favorite charity, the Infants Protection League (IPIE). Gus Vignolle covered the race for Sports Car Graphic.

During the eighteen months or so between my introduction to the TASC members and the last of the races on that version of the Playas track, we met bi-weekly at the very least. Monday evenings, 6 PM at Bocaccio's Ristorante, across from Tijuana's horse racing track, or at a club member's home in that exclusive area of the city, El Hipódromo.

The householder said he had a California car dealer's license and that rent was so high in San Diego he had no facility there. The dozen or so cars of his stock in trade were parked around his house and on nearby streets. He had quite a selection of near-new cars, and seemed to turn them over at a pretty good rate. Most were expensive European sports or sporty vehicles.

I was going to buy an MGB GT, and he offered to purchase and resell to me any car I chose, saving me considerable money. He was out of town when I found the one I wanted, and by the time he returned I'd made my deal elsewhere.

At this time all my experience in racing was as a flagman, turn marshal, and spectator at sports car races. Cal Club (or was it the Los Angeles Region, SCCA?) sent entry blanks for their races as announcements to members of working speciaties that the event was indeed going forward. I copied the Supplemental Regulations from one of these and published an altered version as part of the Tijuana Playas entry form. That made me seem very knowledgeable to the TASC folks.

Car Dealer was acquainted with the current Mayor of Tijuana (that helped when it came to procuring the multitude of permits necessary to use city streets for a racetrack). The mayor wanted some advice about building an automobile road racing track on some land he owned south of Tijuana. I met Car Dealer at Bocaccio's and he drove us to the Mayor's house in a shiny new Mercedes. There we had coffee and brandy and cigars, and an extended chat about the potential for making Tijuana a star in the world's racing firmament (good) and maybe a little money (good). Problem was, he had only about a tenth of the resources—beyond the property—I thought necessary to make a racing plant. What he had would have paved about half a lap of a two-mile circuit. He was going to see about raising the remainder, but something happened and I heard no more about it.

What with my notoriety from being an organizer of the Tijuana Playas road races, when I joined the San Diego Region SCCA it was apparently natural for them to expect me to be a part of their racing organization. Can you say "Shanghai"? As it happened they needed a Chief of Course Control, the previous holder of that postition having retired and resigned in order to spend more time at his favorite occupations: hand-balancing the reciprocating components of his Porsche Carrera engine, and reinstalling it in his VW Karmann Ghia convertible.

Each of the Chiefs was expected to supply his own workers. For the first San Diego Stadium races I inherited some of Mr. Jones' minions by way of a mailing list, but needed many more to complete a reasonable staff. I offered the opportunity to members of the Tijuana Auto Sport Club. Several took me up on it, including the Car Dealer.

On race day Car Dealer showed up, but in customary fashion a couple hours late. I was courteous and thanked him anyway, and for the last time: shortly thereafter he was arrested for auto theft. One of the vehicles stolen was a fine Porsche taken from the spectator parking lot on Stadium raceday.

I have no official knowledge of Car Dealer's Federal case. From various sources I learned that in this investigation it was determined he and his crew had been dealing a quarter- or half-million dollars worth of stolen-to-order cars a year for two or more years. Every car he had sold (and that the Feds could find or pry loose from "cooperative" Mexican officials) was impounded and eventually either returned to the victim of the theft or to the appropriate insuror. Every buyer of a car from this guy was out the money, and the car. Several of the TASC members, Car Dealer's friends, were among this class of victims. It seems to me half a dozen of the cars raced at Playas, including the Spitfire entered by Car Dealer, had been donated by unwilling victims.

One of them was a San Diego Mercedes dealer who didn't even know he was missing the car I rode in to the Mayor's house. The thieves had been out and about in the dead of night when they saw the delivery carrier arrive before sunrise, park his tractor-trailer near the dealer, and go for breakfast. They unloaded the new car and drove it away before the dealer knew he had it. Both the dealer and distributor assumed the other had screwed up paperwork somehow, and wrote off the discrepancy, or at least left it unexplained until the Feds told them the car had been found.

One aspect of the steal-to-order business involved close coordination with a number of foreign car dismantlers throughout Southern California. When they would receive a desirable late-model "totalled" wreck they's let this guy know precisely the make, model, year, colors of that one, and Car Dealer and his cohort would do a quick search to find another, good one matching that description. Buy the wreck, steal the good one, switch the numbers, and spread a little overspray around. Sell it as a revived total.

I was called as witness on behalf of one of the dismantlers in a State prosecution. She said she had no idea Car Dealer was actually Car Thief. I was one of several who testified I had known him for nearly two years and had no idea he was a crook.

Car Dealer's scheme worked for more than two years. I don't know what the stumble was, but Car Dealer fell into the Feds' arms. Multiple charges, strong potential consequences. Out on bail, he fled, and was gone for another year or two, until an alert inspector at San Francisco International Airport nailed him on his return from Japan.

While he was a fugitive I was climbing a stairway near a popular downtown Tijuana restaurant. Hearing someone call, "Frankie!" I turned to see him holding the restaurant door open and waving up at me. I ran down the stairs, and by the time I reached the restaurant, he was gone. Restaurant staff said they didn't remember seeing anyone by that description.

I heard he eventually was sentenced to several years Federal custody. I've missed any further developments.

All from memory, and there is a tickle in there telling me there is more where this came from. But I don't remember it at the moment.

Wait: one San Diego Region racer stiffed his Holtville Hotel, and the Region paid his bill. He eventually absconded with a couple of racecars and a lot of ancillaries he'd paid for with bad checks. If you acquire something with a bad check, you don't really pay for it, do you? More like pretend to pay for it.

just a little bit about drivers as criminals from the other side of earth - once called soviet union. it was in 1980 (maybe 79), and i think it was not a part of sov.un. championship, just a race day in a countryside, on a triangle of public roads, closed for the day. there were ropes to keep people away from the track - at about 4-5 meters. there was a bunch of conscripts from neighbouring army base to keep the order - those boys took it as a vacation. it was a nice, sunny day and people were sitting or walking around, not taking very much notice of those ropes. there were - dunno the right word - wooden platforms on what the local farmers gathered their milk casks in the mornings to be picked up by the milk truck. those, right on the roadside, became very popular as tribunes. there was much of beer around and obviously stronger beverages also - race day is a party, you know... and it was a long day, starting with bikes - there were at least seven classes of bikes: youngsters, women, sidecars, stock, sport etc. but there were formula cars to come. and even a 1300 ccm lada engine could make a light open wheel car to move pretty fast.

even the first half of the formula race went quite well. then shit happened. leaders, a tight bunch of five cars, took one of those sharp turns. finding a non-moving car parked on one side of the road. and a slow-moving straggler on the other side. quick corrections of courses, wheels touching, brakes screeching - and nowhere to go for at least one of the racers. i think it's a reflexive thing - not to hit an obstacle right in front of you but to try to postpone or avoid the crash. so the driver turned away from the filled road. soon enough hitting among other things and bodies one of those impromptu tribunes. seven spectators killed, over twenty injured (iirc - as i really was not running to count them. and it was definitely not an event soviet newspapers were going to give details about.)

so, there was a big and nasty accident. obviously somebody was guilty. investigation went on and on. organizers used their connections and indulgences (aka party membership). they all got away clean. so the final verdict was: suspended one year in prison for the driver involved plus dq-d from racing for a year and half.

ok, he got over it. and, as a graduated engineer, spent that forced-away-from-racing time planning and building his next car. which body panels i volunteered to polish on some sundays - but that's another story.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway chairman Mari Hulman George was involved in a shooting in 1976. At the time it was rumored that husband and ex-racer Elmer George caught her flagrante delicto with an employee, with Elmer coming off the worse for it. The shooting was hushed up in remarkably short order. Here's one account:

"The shooting death of (Tony Hulman's) son-in-law, speedway vice-president Elmer George, little more than a year before brought scandal. Tony Hulman's daughter, Mary ``Mari'' Antonia Hulman George, filed for divorce May 3. Then a Race Day quarrel began in the speedway penthouse and spilled to the Hulman farm east of Terre Haute.

Elmer George broke in the back door of the home of 34-year-old horse trainer Guy Trolinger, whom he'd earlier fired and ordered to leave the farm. The shooting started at the back door and continued to the living room and up the stairway. The two fired as many as 17 shots, police said. Trolinger shot George five times. A grand jury, in effect, ruled the killing self-defense. "

Originally posted by BufordElmer George caught his wife Mari Hulman George (Tony George's mother) in bed with a farm hand at one of the family properties. He was killed in a shootout. The farm hand was aquitted of a murder charge on self defense. As of two years ago anyway, the farm hand was still a "good friend" of Mari Hulman, more than 25 years later!

This is from another thread, however it covers the issues mentioned by lanciaman.

When it comes to killing relatives, however, one of the outstanding cases is merely potentially that...

Jack Saywell's parents were wealthy people in Sydney in the 1920 and 1930s... but they were found killed by someone viciously wielding an axe.

Jack was at least one of the beneficiaries, and he spent a lot of money on racing over the ensuing years. His importation of the Alfa Romeo Tipo B... one of the Dubonnet front suspension cars... was accompanied by an English mechanic who was supposedly an expert on maintaining the cars.

Jack became a partner in a workshop that catered to the needs of racers as well, but all wasn't totally rosy in the garden.

Having rebuilt the Tipo B engine after just a couple of races, the imported hand had put the valvegear together with the timing wrong or something. The car was even towed around the block to try and start it. Result? Bent valves... Solution? Send the engine to Italy for a rebuild...

In mid-1939, this wasn't such a smart idea... it hasn't been seen since.

I was interested to read the earlier post about Nick Whiting, a very accomplish saloon car driver back in the 80s. He owned a car dealership at Wrotham, Kent, and early one evening went missing. I was in the local Police at the time. His garage was left insecure, nothing was stolen and there appeared to be no signs of violence. I was detailed to go to Whiting's home where his family lived, and stay there all might just in case there was any contact from the abductors. During the evening, a concerned friend came to the house, and he turned out to be Vic Lee, former manager of a championship winning BMW touring car team, and someone who'd gone inside for a serious drugs importation offence.

I hadn't heard about the Kenneth Noye connection but then he lived only a short distance away at West Kingsdown.

Whiting was found not long afterwards, I believe, trusted up on the Essex Marshes, in what was termed 'a gangland killing' ie assasinated.

Originally posted by Paul Rochdale I was interested to read the earlier post about Nick Whiting, a very accomplish saloon car driver back in the 80s. He owned a car dealership at Wrotham, Kent, and early one evening went missing. I was in the local Police at the time. His garage was left insecure, nothing was stolen and there appeared to be no signs of violence. I was detailed to go to Whiting's home where his family lived, and stay there all might just in case there was any contact from the abductors. During the evening, a concerned friend came to the house, and he turned out to be Vic Lee, former manager of a championship winning BMW touring car team, and someone who'd gone inside for a serious drugs importation offence.

I hadn't heard about the Kenneth Noye connection but then he lived only a short distance away at West Kingsdown.

Whiting was found not long afterwards, I believe, trusted up on the Essex Marshes, in what was termed 'a gangland killing' ie assasinated.

Nick's brother Charlie is of course Charlie Whiting of Brabham and FIA fame....

Vic is as you'll no doubt be aware very much in circulation in the racing community these days, and apart from smoking cigarettes in what looks like a very ex-con sort of way he seems little the worse for his time behind bars.

A french amateur rallye driver was involved in an accident where many spectators where killed in France (2001 I think). Don't remember the name but this guy was involved in illegal activity with corsica freedom movment.

Y.

Marco Masarotto, a Corsican himself.

David 'Salt' Walther is another driver who spent some time indoors.

Without ever being caught, Gilles Villeneuve had stolen tools from a hardware store. His agent, Gaston Parent, found a way to repay the chain store without telling them. Villeneuve wanted to clear his conscience, all those years after the fact.

Thanks for that, there may well be several spelling mistakes in the brief Autosport report last week.I see the case came up at a High Wycombe court and 4 men have been remanded in custody, I wondered if anyone knows of a reliably factual report from the court etc which might shed a bit more light on just what had happened.

Now this is pure speculation and hearsay but whilst living a South Africa I met an old Lotus employee. One of the rumours going around for a couple of years after the great train robbery was that some of the cash was smuggled out of the country in the tyres of racing cars. He did name names but as he was sometimes prone to exaggeration I will refrain from giving them.

Originally posted by Vitesse2 Best not - there might be a small libel in there somewhere (allegedly) .....;)

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. And while we're at it , there is to me something slightly dodgy about that other present-day F1 bloke...oh, what's his name now............yes, Fulvia Bimotore, is it? The one that was allegedly a member of the French Foreign Legion in his early days.

I wasn't sure that that person had been involved that closely with the sport during the early sixties.... (I thought there was a gap in his involvement in the sport because of the death of a great friend of his...) I also had heard rumours that his link to the Great Train Robbery was because he supplied the getaway cars ;)

Originally posted by Vicuna A now departed British based Aussie was a get away driver.

At least once!

Originally posted by KJJ Who he? Some time ago in one of his web columns Mike Lawrence mentioned a racer who was a get away driver with Roy James on the Heathrow robbery in the early 60s. Said that he was later killed in a race but reached F1.

Originally posted by Vitesse2 Putting the two posts above together: Hawkeye?

Hawk...

On a similar note, although I am not aware of the British reports of the time, it may be interesting to check what the Italian press had to say about the death of Boley Pittard.

Pittard entered the XVI Coppa Autodromo di Monza for Formula 3 cars, a race held on 04 June 1967. His Lola, standing in the centre of the second row, went up in flames at the start of the race. To avoid involving other cars in the fire, Pittard bravely drove the burning car out of the racing line, but suffered extensive burns in the process, and a marshal was also injured trying to rescue the driver. Italy was still in shock after the death of Bandini in Monaco, and in consequence of that the marshals had finally received better vests which had some fireproof characteristics, but the procedures put in place for their usage called for the marshals to wear it if an accident occurs, instead of being dressed all the time with them... (worth noting that firefighting vests in the late 1960s were extremely heavy and discomfortable).

Pittard was taken to a hospital in Monza, and then to Milano, Italy; despite being awake and conscious, his burns were very severe, and he would pass away six days later following a kidney failure.

The accident generated much debate in Italy, including rumours that Pittard would have been killed because he was connected to the "Great Train Robbery" in the United Kingdom. The police inquiry, though, found a much more prosaic cause for the tragedy: the car caught suddenly fire on the starting grid possibily because the driver himself hit the fuel connector to the carburetor with a foot whilst entering the cockpit, detaching it and causing a leak.

I wasn't sure that that person had been involved that closely with the sport during the early sixties.... (I thought there was a gap in his involvement in the sport because of the death of a great friend of his...) I also had heard rumours that his link to the Great Train Robbery was because he supplied the getaway cars ;)

There is a great film script here waiting to be written based on fact set in the world of underworld crime with motor racing as an incidental backdrop............suppose we will have to be patient.

There is a great film script here waiting to be written based on fact set in the world of underworld crime with motor racing as an incidental backdrop............suppose we will have to be patient.

You may not have long to wait ...

I wrote such a script two years ago. Just as I boxed it up there was an announcement that its twin was in production with famous artists attached. Seemed as if everyone knew about it, judging by the rejection comments on mine. I've lost track of who was involved, but that's about the right length of time, and NASCAR has certainly prepared a ripe market. I don't think T H I S is it, but ...

My other script was in the mail when Traffic was released. I need to write two years sooner.

Something like that Frank might just be very good , with elements of "The Italian Job", The Great Train Robbery " , "The Long Good Friday " and "The Persuaders" , a luxury glamourous background and some evil criminal types involved in Motor Racing who stop at nothing !

There is a great film script here waiting to be written based on fact set in the world of underworld crime with motor racing as an incidental backdrop............suppose we will have to be patient.

I don't have to watch it at the movies. I lived a part of it in the 1970s if you consider drug running to be organized crime. It was going on all around me, on both the oval and road race circuits. I had numerous opportunities to get involved, as did many others who used the profits to move up. I was too chicken that I would get caught, and too naive to think I was talented enough to make it without resorting to criminal activities to finance my racing. Ah well, live and learn. If I had it to do over again, I would have delivered the packages.

I wasn't sure that that person had been involved that closely with the sport during the early sixties.... (I thought there was a gap in his involvement in the sport because of the death of a great friend of his...) I also had heard rumours that his link to the Great Train Robbery was because he supplied the getaway cars ;)

I'd heard that someone's involvement might have been that he'd supplied plans for heists to the heisters in return for cash up front......none of that percentage nonsense........

I'd heard that someone's involvement might have been that he'd supplied plans for heists to the heisters in return for cash up front......none of that percentage nonsense........

Paul M

Now.... here's a thought. Anyone got a pic of the diminutive Henry Woolf playing the very scary "Frankie Barrow, Godfather of Shepherd's Bush" from Steptoe and Son Ride Again? The resemblance is stunning ;)

SBV is managed on different levels but it is still owned and run by the same people that it always was when it was Pecatelo resort and Lanzarote beach club, only the names change. I will explain more further on. The top-level owners do still exist, David is not a problem, Robbie Stirling is the one described by the two top managers as a nasty piece of work and whom they answer to.